Who owns the West? Drillers and Environmentalists wage a war of statistics

The 2010 average break even costs in Wyoming’s Pinedale field in 2010 was $4; in Colorado’s Piceance basin $5; and Utah’s Unita Basin $4.50, according to a study by Science Applications International Corp., AIC, an engineering and technology consulting firm.

The lowest cost operators have lifting costs less than half of those averages. Still, the economic environment was not favorable to western production.

At the same time that the West was struggling, new natural gas plays, such as the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania and New York and the Barnett in Texas, were opening up, and drilling rigs were moving into these new reserves closer to big markets.

Also while leases on federal lands have a 10-year term, private lease are usually for three to five years, so there is more pressure to drill on these.

And so, between the last quarter of 2008 and the start of 2012 the number of rigs in the Marcellus rose from 8 to 124, according to data from Rigzone and the energy investment bank Tudor, Holt Pickering & Co.

During the same period, rigs operating in Wyoming’s Green River Basin, Utah’s Unita Basin and Colorado’s Piceance rigs dropped by 135 to 91.

Outstanding article. Your analysis clearly shows the current gas market together with BLM efforts to improve resource management plans, leasing, and permitting processes consistent with principles of multiple use are the key factors impacting mineral resource development, not an anti-development bias by government agencies.

Emilie Rusch covers retail and commercial real estate for The Post. A Wisconsin native and Mizzou graduate, she moved to Colorado in 2012. Before that, she worked at a small daily newspaper in South Dakota. It's the one with Mount Rushmore.